Keep Keizer Livable is a group of Keizer residents who are passionate about keeping their community a welcoming place to play, work and live, local businesses thriving and neighborhoods vital. 

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Keizer City Council Appeals LUBA Decision to Court of Appeals

Local community group, Keep Keizer Livable, is disappointed with city council’s decision to appeal Land Use Board of Appeals ruling

September 8, 2011, Keizer, Oregon – Keizer City Council voted Tuesday to appeal a ruling made last month by the state’s Land Use Board of Appeal challenging the city council’s decision to approve the Master Plan for Area C of the Keizer Station planned mixed-use development.

“We’re disappointed with the decision to spend our tax money by appealing the LUBA decision”, said Keep Keizer Livable co-founder Kevin Hohnbaum.  “The Land Use Board of Appeals was clear in supporting the position that Keep Keizer Livable has repeatedly brought up in public hearings.”

The council’s decision comes weeks after LUBA ruled that there were two assignments of error to the Master Plan for Area C. The first error dealt with the traffic analysis. The city code required the applicant to follow standards adopted from the International Traffic Engineer’s Trip Generation Manual. Instead of following the manual’s standards, the city relied solely on the applicant’s traffic engineer’s expert opinion which did not follow the manual’s guidelines. In short, they took a short-cut.

The second error dealt with ‘concurrency’ issue. In some last minute maneuvering as they approved the master plan, Keizer City Council added a last minute condition in an attempt to dilute city code requiring the large format store and the vertical mixed-use developments be built at the same time. 

“When the council changed the development code to allow buildings larger than 10,000 square feet in mixed-use areas, the reasoning was that the large format store is the economic driver needed to accomplish the mixed-use vision for Area C”, Hohnbaum said.  “Now the council does not want to deal with the code they originally created.  The code’s concurrency requirement was intended to protect the neighborhood from some of the impact of the big box store and guarantee that Area C maintained the community’s vision for Keizer Station.”

The condition that the council added would allow the large format store to be completed and open while the vertical mixed-use, multi-family units and retail and office uses could be delayed indefinitely or not constructed at all.

This action by the city council demonstrates they believe the Court of Appeals will simply overturn LUBA’s ruling and hopefully allow the city to interpret its own code.  In a newspaper interview, Mayor Christopher recently remarked “I don't believe a remand is stopping the project.  I believe a remand is fixing the project, so the project can go forward. It tells you where you have inconsistencies that you have to address."

“As we have seen demonstrated clearly throughout this process the past 4 years, Keizer City Council believes that, in spite of overwhelming public opinion to the contrary, they know what’s best for our neighborhood, the Keizer community and local businesses”, Hohnbaum said.  “Appealing LUBA’s decision is a continuation of the ‘we know what’s best’ attitude.”

Land Use Board of Appeals handed down their ruling on Friday, August 19th, remanding the master plan for Area C of Keizer Station back to the City Council for reconsideration.